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Villains are inveterate scene-stealers -- none more so than Satan, who all but walks away with Milton's Paradise Lost. Satan is presented as a tragic figure and even somewhat heroic in his refusal to knuckle under to higher authority. After an abortive coup in heaven, the rebellious Satan and his minions are cast into hell, where they plot their comeback. A lesser figure might have given in to discouragement or self-pity on finding himself chained for eternity to a lake of fire. But Satan makes himself right at home. As he puts it, "Better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven." He is not one to allow his reduced circumstances to alter his frame of mind. "The mind is its own place," he observes acutely, "and in itself can make a heaven of hell, and a hell of heaven."
Satan's determination to make a heaven of hell might be worthy of at least our grudging admiration. So what are we to make of a human race that seems determined to do the opposite? Our founding myths tell us that paradise is our primordial home, and look what we have made of it!
There was a time when such stories were widely taken as literal truth, and Eden sometimes appeared on maps in fanciful realms beyond the known world. By the time the unknown regions were all filled in on the map, Eden was assumed to be just another one of those fanciful realms. We did not understand that paradise is not a place but a way of seeing the world. This was the message Jesus proclaimed, not to see what we have made of the world but to see the world as God made it. "Repent," he said, "for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." "Repent" in the original Greek of the New Testament literally means to change the mind. As Satan assures us, the mind is its own place. We can make a heaven of hell or a hell of heaven; it's our choice. Strange that Satan should be the one with the heavenly gaze. But then, he is a fallen angel.
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